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Getdataback, or Easeus data recovery are two of the programs I generally use, but Easeus is pretty good and gets file names and the folder structure, it's also free. Ultimately you just have to try several but the more you try the greater the risk of losing data. I would be more concerned in getting the files back regardless.

dr> I have tried a few of the more common recovery programs with mixed
dr> results. She needs to keep the the file names and the directory
dr> structure. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

I hope the first thing you did was stop the user from using the system
and removed the HD for recovery on your own system - the more that the
HD is used ( or if anything is installed / written to the drive ) the
less chance of anything at all being recovered.

Presumably there is still some degree of backup and it's just the
local files that have been accidentally lost ( begs the question on
what was being used to do the backup ? ) and only those since the last
successful backup was done.

As for recovery itself, getting back the exact file structure and file
names is often not possible and any recovery job will involve some
degree of rebuilding - nature of the beast unfortunately :-(

Lots of suggestions regarding what to use and I've been a fan of Get
Data Back for some years. What I would suggest before going any
further is a sector by sector image of the HD as it currently stands
using something like Acronis True Image so that if recovery efforts
cause more damage the current state can be restored to try again.

HTH and Good Luck.

Bummer that the user lost data when doing a backup but the method of
doing backups has to be questioned if it could lead to that.

dr> I think she selected all of the folders to copy to another drive,
dr> late at night, must have hit delete instead of copy and just hit
dr> ok automatically.

If that was the case then they would have gone to the recycle bin if
it was large enough or a warning message would have popped up that the
files were too large and do you want to permanently delete. That would
have caused here to double-take and say no <lol>

So - if they have just gone to the recycle bin they should still be
there ??

Even if the system was set to delete directly, i.e. not use the
recycle bin, the 'are you sure you want to delete' message should have
popped up.

FWIW this is one of the dangers of manual backup - one false move and
you end up in a hole like this. Programs such as Karen's Replicator
make the job more or less foolproof as well as easier / faster too so
would suggest that in future. A little bit of setting up but once set
the actual backup job ( or multiple jobs ) can be reduced to a double
click on a single icon on the desktop.

Too big for recycle bin.
Yes she hit ok too often.
She did not want to use back up program as she wanted to just have
copies on an external drive that she could directly access from another
computer directly.

dr> She did not want to use back up program as she wanted to just have
dr> copies on an external drive that she could directly access from
dr> another computer directly.

Exactly how Karen's Replicator does it - just copies the files and
folders 'as is' to the external medium so everything is readable on
any other system. Not a great fan of backups that use proprietary
schemes that means the program has to be installed on any system that
you want to access the files on! If you need a full audit trail of
changes then these backup programs are useful, but how many of us need
that?

I've been using Karen's Replicator for many years and it's never let me down. In addition to copying changed files, it has a lot of options that make it very flexible. You should still have a good backup software that can be used to restore the computer.

No real results yet.
I will post answer when I get one.
I did try a several more demo's today, but they showed a lot of zero
byte files. Each one found different numbers of files, ranging from
94,000 to 101,000.
Dan

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